THE WORLD BINDER

In the conclusion to Dabney’s (The Peace Keeper, 2016, etc.) fantasy trilogy, a woman prophesied to save the split-in-two world has little time to mend souls before all is lost.

Back when Eve took fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the end result was the halving of the world and every human soul. Accordingly, everyone has a good and evil counterpart in a parallel universe. In present day, Riley Dale has learned she’s an Electa, a descendant of Eve. As the Soul Mender and the World Binder, Riley is destined to fix the fractured world before all the people in it destroy one another. Terrorists in her world seem intent on attacking America, while war is imminent in the other world. Riley determines that mending souls is somehow linked to the Garden of Eden. With help from her Custos (assigned protector), Michael Flynn, as well as her other, a reformed prostitute/heroin addict who goes by Oz, Riley searches for Eden. But a group of assassins, the Jondi, believing Eve’s original intention was the world’s eventual destruction, plans to stop them. Things take an unexpected turn, however, when there’s a strong possibility that a significant element of the prophecy has been misinterpreted. Following brief synopses of the preceding installments, Dabney’s tale resumes the series’ swift pace. Riley continues training with Michael (she becomes proficient in transporting herself), while the teased war pays off in the end. There are multiple chewy plot points: If the worlds merge, people’s counterparts will merge as well, meaning that only Riley or Oz will remain. Twists in the final act are genuinely surprising, and a happy ending isn’t a certainty. Dabney’s straightforward writing relies on concise descriptions to maintain momentum, and she churns out indelible prose, like a particularly distraught Riley feeling as if “her emotions had set off an EMP in her brain, rendering her system useless.”

A sensational, emotionally charged denouement to an extraordinary series.